Live Review: Death Grips @ The Roundhouse

Californian avant-garde hip hop act Death Grips lived up to their notorious reputation with a fiercely uncompromising live performance at Camden’s Roundhouse venue this previous Saturday, playing a blitzkrieg set of twenty five songs back-to-back without a single breather.

Choosing to dress comically and inappropriately in suits, the trio seemed ready for lounge bar jazz as they took their positions on the stage, breaking instead into abrasive surprise opener ‘Whatever I Want (Fuck Who’s Watching)’, a track off their 2013 Government Plates album and one of the less played in anyone’s iTunes library.

Following this up with sludgy beast ‘Bubbles Buried in This Jungle’ off their latest album Bottomless Pit, it seemed this set was going to be full of twists and turns, and indeed it was, drawing from every instalment of the band’s discography including popular demands such as ‘The Fever’ and ‘Guillotine’ as well as a few curveballs such as ‘Black Dice’ and ‘Full Moon (Death Classic)’.

Exhausting as it was, the crowd kept eager pace with the non-stop bombardment of bangers, the group’s manic vocalist MC Ride matching their energy with his flailing and yelping. And yes, he was shirtless by the end of the night. The band that broke up but are still going, continue to shock and allure.